Thirty Five

Watching

   "Welfare check!" A voice booms through the locked door. A fist pounds on the wood hard enough to jolt the hinges slightly. There has been no answer, and the officers standing at the apartment wonder if this is going to be another deceased senior citizen.

   "Do we want to call management to unlock the door, or just kick it in?" The more stout of the two men turns to his partner, who looks at the door for a moment. He tugs at his scraggly beard as he speaks.

   "There's always a chance the occupant is near the door. With the current climate, I'm sure they'd cry police brutality if we hit them with it." He rolls his eyes. This makes the squat man next to him chuckle. His large belly jiggles with each laugh. "Go downstairs and find the manager. I'll try knocking again."
"Why do I gotta be the one to take the stairs?" The jolly officer whines.
"Because you're the reason Paul Blart exists."

   With a childish pout, the large man waddles his way towards the stairs, cursing this building for not having a public elevator.

   The more fit of the two shakes his head before turning to the door again, about to lift his fist to rap against it for a fourth time. A soft thud freezes his arm in mid-air. He stares at the numbers nailed into the wood blankly. Was that the person who lives here? A cat jumping off of a table?

   "I'm Officer Grant. I'm here for a welfare check." The man speaks carefully while he gently knocks on the door ever so softly. Spooking some coked up drug fiend is not his idea of a good time. He waits for any sounds at all. Breathing, running, rambling; but there is nothing.

   "I'm back puff with the manager puff he said some boring loner guy has been living here." The rotund man comes around the corner, causing Grant to jump. "Damn dude, did the guy insult your beard or something?" He manages to wheeze out.

   "What? Oh. No. No. Uhm." Grant shakes his head to pull his thoughts together. "Let's just get this door open."
The manager steps between Grant and the door, invading his personal space to do so. The jingling of keys is the only sound in the empty corridor as the manager struggles to get the key to turn properly.

   "Gotta jiggle it." He mumbles.
The two uniformed men exchange a look of annoyance. These slumlords are all the same.

   "It's unlocked. The guy's name is Corey Hoglund." The landlord steps aside, though still closer to the door than would be comfortable.

   Officer Grant starts to open the door, but it very quickly becomes stuck. It had only opened a few inches. It's just enough to peer into the great room. The floor is covered in puddles of black and a smell that makes the officer's nose burn wafts through the opening. Giving the door a shove with his shoulder, Grant manages to create an opening large enough for him to slip through.
"Oh sweet fucking god." He chokes out, quickly covering his mouth with the back of one of his hands. "We've got decomp." Is the only other thing he can manage before starting to cough and gag.

   Laying against the door is a man- or what used to be a man. He is covered in a greasy substance that looks to be moving across his skin like water in a lazy stream. Some sort of mask is hiding his face. It looks to be made of white unglazed clay, and has some sort of red symbol taking up where the eyes, nose, and mouth would be. The eyes, instead of simple holes, and three slits on each side. It's chin ends in a point which elongates the entire look of the man's head into something inhuman.

   "Well move the guy so I can get in there!" The officer outside of the unit calls, breaking Grant's horror for just a moment. The thought of touching this corpse makes him want to jump from the window. Forever being a professional, though, the now shaking man heaves the body to the side away from the door. As soon as his hands touch it's skin his flesh begins to burn as if dipped in boiling water.

   "Shit! Get in here, Conway!" Grant calls louder than he likely needed to. He wipes his hands on his pants in a desperate attempt to save his palms and fingers from the stinging they're covered in. "And don't fucking touch him!"

   The other officer, Conway, rushes in as fast as his round body will allow. Within seconds on crossing the threshold and catching a glimpse of the man on the floor he recoils.

   "Damn," he shakes his head, "poor kid. Looks like some sort of psychosis got to him." Conway tuts, squatting down. He reaches to remove the mask from the deceased's face, but Grant clamps a hand on his shoulder.

   "Don't touch him. He covered himself in some sort of acid or something."

   "Welp, let's call it in to get him loaded and get all of this cleaned up."

   The two officers look around the small apartment. The pools of black are everywhere. There are streaks of the same substance on the walls and one of the windows. On a small tea table sits a paper with the same symbol as the mask drawn on it. There are words written under the symbol.

Mannaz Tiwaz Wunjō

   "Freaky cult crazies." Conway breathes to himself. "Shit always makes my skin crawl."

   Grant ignores his partner, instead just staring at the form of the man on the floor.

   "Hey," he calls over, "is he moving?"